


past right and wrong

by steevee



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Canon Compliant, Developing Relationship, Drabble Collection, Established Relationship, F/M, Kissing, Possibly Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-13
Updated: 2019-09-20
Packaged: 2019-10-27 10:54:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17765459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/steevee/pseuds/steevee
Summary: An (eventual) collection of short Nott/Caleb drabbles, mostly canon compliant and written in a fervor after the episode had ended. May eventually be rearranged into sequential order, but each drabble has no bearing on the next.





	1. suggestion

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. suggestion: nott's first experience with the spell, long before either of them set foot on water.
> 
> (components- a snake's tongue, a bit of honeycomb, or sweet oil)

One thing Nott did not expect was for Caleb's lips to be sweet. Sour breath, maybe, or the bitter aftertaste of a healing potion, but not the subtle tinge of something syrupy that she received when they kissed. Diluted in dirt and sweat, somehow it was still enough to remind her of the sweet mead the inn served with breakfast.

"You taste funny," she noted, and resisted the urge to lick at his mouth to suss the flavor out.

"Do I?" Caleb's brow furrowed. He drew his tongue over his top lip, thought a second, and then relaxed. "Ah-- do you remember, when we spoke to that rather wealthy man on the street, earlier?"

"You mean when I filched his coin purse while you-- while you sweet talked him?" She recalled the event vaguely, but mostly just the thrill of running away with that much gold and silver, of the drinks they bought afterward, and of collapsing into the inn room's bed together gleeful and exhausted.

"Precisely," he said behind a wry grin, "Sweet-talking is exactly the word, in a more literal sense. That was not just natural charisma, you see, it, ah... was another trick I know."

"How does it work?" Nott asked, tilting her head to one side. Curiosity had always been her flaw, in life. There was something about the knowledge that other people had that called to her like a gem in a locked trunk. Precious, if she could just hold it.

"Well," Caleb leaned back against the shabby headboard, lips pinched together. Though his hands stayed around the small of her back, his fingers drummed in a nervous twitch. "I could use it on you, if you would like, but there is no guarantee it would work-- and if it does, you may be slightly displeased with me after the fact."

"I can't imagine I would be," replied Nott, without a second's hesitation. "Why not give it a shot?"

Above, Caleb frowned at her. Always full of things in his head, he seemed, and it comforted her as much as it filled her with pride. How he'd grown, compared to that empty man she'd found but a few months ago in jail.

He took one hand back, and tucked it into the front of his jacket. She watched as he deftly unscrewed a small jar, dipped a finger in, and then smeared it over his bottom lip. The smell, same and sweet as the taste, hit her again.

"Why not," he echoed remorsefully. His eyes locked onto hers, focused and piercing blue. His voice came out soft, and halting. "Nott, I... I enjoyed it very much, what we were doing a moment ago, and if you would like... I suggest that you do it again. Only if you wish to, however."

Her chest swelled, elated but still waiting for-- something. But something refused to come, other than Caleb trembling before her. That was about as straightforward as things seemed to get, with him.

"Well, alright," Nott gave him the briefest of funny looks and caught his sticky-sweet lips with hers. The taste of honey met her tongue in a burst of recognition, and this time she couldn't help but swipe it off.

Beneath her Caleb sat still as a stone, not a breath leaving him.

"That was nice," she tried, in an attempt to clear the air. "But was it supposed to do something?"

"Ah," he stuttered back into motion like a broken wind-up toy she'd stolen once, whose gears she eventually managed to set back in place. "I-- er, I suppose not, not really. Perhaps that was not the best example... I hope that you forgive me."

"Oh, was _that_ supposed to be the lesson? Is it... for making kissing better? You didn't-- you didn't kiss that man, did you?" Nott didn't _think_ he had, but then again, she'd been behind searching the guy's pockets the whole time. The idea of it was striking, to say the least.

Beneath her, Caleb balked, and then laughed. The thin bedframe under them shook, and eventually stilled.

"No, no, it is for-- for making someone more susceptible, to, ah... requests. It is not a very nice thing to do, and I should not have used it on you even for show. Especially not in this... circumstance, as it were."

Incredulous, Nott felt her eyes instinctively roll. Such a worrywart, her boy. (They were two of a kind, of course.)

"Is it still on? Or-- still... still in effect?" She asked, leaning her weight comfortably back into the arm around her. Part of her wondered how long Caleb could hold her up like this, how it spoke to his strength in recent days. How they both fared better in a town like this.

"I would have to cast it again, so, ah... no."

"Then, can you ask me, one more time? The same question."

He swallowed, the knot in his throat bobbling before her.

"Nott, if... if you would, would you... would you kiss me again, once more, please?"

She forced her grin down over her teeth and met his eyes, so avoidant of hers and almost swallowed up by the pink filling his cheeks. Down in her chest, she felt about as warm as he looked.

"Of course, Caleb."

 


	2. together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 2\. nott and caleb have a conversation after a particular exchange with keg at the inn at shady creek run- ep. 142. 
> 
> (relationship status: unestablished.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Oh, you’re together._   
>  _Sure._   
>  _Not like that._   
>  _Oh. Okay. I was going to say I think you could do better, but anyway._

"Thank you, for defending me back there," Nott mentioned to Caleb as they lay side by side on the bed, Frumpkin's lack of cat form leaving a tangibly empty space between their feet. "You didn't have to. I know I'm not-- not what people typically..." She gnawed the inside of her cheek. "I'm not winning any beauty contests, is what I'm saying." 

"You have nothing to thank me for." The linens shifted above her until Caleb's face appeared mere inches from hers, a frown already deepset into it. Above his brow sat a familiar unhappy wrinkle that betrayed when he got swept up in a feeling. Nott always had to resist the urge to pinch it between her fingers, and now was no exception. As he continued, it relaxed only slightly. "Besides, there is not a face I appreciate seeing more than yours-- certainly more than a surly dwarf's, or whomever else's." 

"Well-- I still don't think she was _wrong_ ," she protested despite the glow of warmth in her chest that came with Caleb's flattery. Too sweet for his own good, really. Another reason for Keg to be right. "But, you were really going to let her think that we-- that we were... you know?" 

Caleb shrugged, his eyes going from her up to the wooden beams that made up the ceiling. "Whatever meaning she takes is on her, as I see it. If she were to believe we are involved, that is no concern of mine." 

"But-- shouldn't it be? A man... involving himself... with a goblin would be a pretty nasty rumor, wouldn't it?" She swallowed, hand itching for her flask as too many memories, too many possibilities- none of them real- flashed through her mind in succession. Compared to the erratic thumping of her awful green heart, Caleb's body lay still and peaceful next to her. One of his arms shifted to rest between them, hand palm up.

"Not when I am already running arm in arm with one. And besides, you know where I have come from-- there is little that could dirty my reputation in society more than it has been already." 

"Somehow I feel like that might do the trick." She muttered, though the comment brought no immediate response from the man beside her. Caleb's hand stayed between them, a still offering. Eventually she took it- placed her clawed hand over his palm with care not to scratch- and his fingers wasted no time before interlocking with hers. He squeezed, firm and gentle and affectionate at once.

"You are worth a thousand of Keg-- and I would be lucky to have such a partnership in my life. I am lucky, as fate would have it, that you did not run screaming from me ages ago. After all, I'm no looker myself." 

"That's not true," she rebuffed softly. Just looking at Caleb, with his kind eyes and fond smile, was enough to convince her of that. How his handsomeness wasn't completely obvious to everyone that came across him was a mystery as far as she was concerned. 

"But... are you saying you wouldn't mind, if someone was-- like me-- not me, but like me-- and they... if it was an option?" Her needle teeth dug into her bottom lip as the idea trailed into something already more impossible than the first. Even if someone could bring themselves to love a goblin, the few options she had would, could never. For too many reasons. 

"That is a very specific question," he remarked with a curious look, coupled with the unspoken glimmer of _but I won't pry_ that Caleb so often gave her. It was always a relief, the space that they gave each other. A burden, too. 

"...Perhaps." Caleb's answer came after a while of gazing in silence at the warped wood lines in the floor above. She wondered how well he could see them, human as his eyes were, or if he simply stared into the darkness.

"I would not fight it, at least not more than any other. But... I have not been in love in a very long time-- and it takes a long time, for someone to fall in love in the first place."

"Yes, it does." Nott echoed, though the falseness of it fell flat in her throat. "A very, very long time."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey yall i'm back to doing these!!!! admittedly i lost my mojo for a bit trying to reconcile recent canon with what i had written previously, but now i'm back at it. here's one that was initially written a million years ago when this episode came out and edited after. i promise i'll get to recent events eventually. 
> 
> (i love keg and maybe someday i'll write something about nott loving her too, but whoof this moment.)


	3. memory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set immediately after the ending of episode 78.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Fuck off, cops!_

Nott's delighted scream rang in Caleb's ears as he struck the final line into the glyph. The world flashed into new, city streets replaced by blinding magic and instantly again by fine Xhorhassian masonry. 

The Mighty Nein laughed around him, reeling from the teleportation. The horses teetered anxiously, though at the least Caleb imagined it was better for them than zapping into two consecutively tiny rooms. Nott, _really_ Nott for the first time in hours, wheezed below him, shrieking and laughing all the same. On impulse he swept her up into his arms. Her familiar weight settled around his waist as she struggled to calm her breath, hair askew over her face.

"What happened with you out there?" He laughed, fighting to keep his eyes open over his smile. 

"It--" Nott stopped and started, shoulders jerking with laughter. She leaned into the support of his arms and took a deep breath. "Oh, you know. I told them that, that my dog--" 

"Your dog?" Caleb's chest burned from the utter inanity and the adrenaline, the familiar hysteria. The sight of her wrapped in the sleeves of his old coat that he suddenly, intensely regretted discarding. 

"My, my dog-- Avantika--"

He about bowed over completely with the both of them, which only made Nott cackle louder. For a moment he was transported again, to a ramshackle campsite in the woods and the safety and relief of a caper pulled decently enough that they both lived, and would live, and possibly even eat. He and his goblin, who clutched at his lapels and pushed her forehead into his chest like it was home. His arms tightened around her like it would cure the ache that lay deeper there. Like it could make up for the time they had gone without this.

The awkward clatter of the guard lowering their weapons pulled him back. Nott's legs shifted; from habit he set her down, leaving her with his hand. Her fingers slid down his sleeve but didn't make to grasp at him. He swallowed, focused on the armored Kryn before them. 

"Shadowhand Essik--" He started. "We have, could you summon him? We require a meeting with him. He should, ah, be aware, more or less. Expecting us."

One of the guard said something affirmative and muttered to the other, who made off down the hall. Around Caleb, the rest of the Nein already began to slump over benches and seats and pillars. Nott's armor shimmered into a new outfit in the corner of his eye. 

He dropped his own Seeming and the moment was gone. Already it lived in his memory, burned in perfect detail. There and only there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just a little one this time. thanks for hanging in there yall, there's more in the future <3


End file.
